Saturday, September 10, 2011

Snow Skin or Ping Peh Mooncakes.....

Snow Skin mooncakes are mooncakes that have an outer layer of soft gluey skin that are made from cooked glutinous rice flour called Koh Fun in Chinese. Mix with some icing sugar, shortening and water it will turn into a snowy white, sweet and soft dough that is delicious to eat it on its own.

Making snow skin mooncake is actually the easiest among all the other types of mooncake as you need not baked the mooncake and it tastes as good as the baked ones. Snow skin mooncake must be refrigerated and only to be served when needed unlike the baked ones that can be kept in an airtight container for longer period.

There are a few variations in making the snow skin mooncakes, but the basic ingredients are cooked glutinous rice flour and shortening which can be bought in some grocery shops and baking goods supplier.

Some recipes use condensed milk instead of icing sugar to sweeten the dough. Flavorings and color can be added to enhance the taste according to your preference or to compliment your fillings. For example if your fillings is pandan lotus paste you can add pandan juice or essense to your skin or if your fillings is durian paste lotus you can add durian essence.

Last week I made a small batch of chilled mooncakes in mini sizes ( in fact I made all my other moonckakes in mini sizes this year much to my delight) as it is easy to pop into the mouth and looks dainty.

Mix Koh Fun and icing sugar in a bowl. Rub the shortening into the Koh Fun and icing sugar til it resemble breadcrumbs. Add iced water , coloring and flavoring if used and knead to form a ball of dough.

Cover dough with cling wrap and let it rest for 15 mins in the fridge before using. Prepare and weigh fillings proportionately.

Fillings:- about 400g lotus paste or red bean paste.

Weigh the fillings according to the size of your mould first. To do this first get a ball of fillings and press into yr mould and flatten. Take out and weigh that filling. If that moulded fillings weigh 170g for example, used 70g for skin and 100g for fillings. For my mini ones I use 20g for skin and 40g for fillings. It is up to your preference whether you like your skin thick or thin. Adjust it proportionately.

Then place a ball of skin between 2 plastic sheets and roll it into circle. Wrap the skin over each ball of filling and press into the mould. Place the mooncakes in container and chilled it in fridge until ready to be served.